Monika Palmberger

Dr. Monika Palmberger is a Senior Scientist at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, where she conducts research on migration, memory, and digital ethnography. She also holds positions as Visiting Professor at the Central European University and Associate Research Fellow at the University of Leuven.

Dr. Palmberger earned her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Oxford with a thesis entitled 'How Generations Remember. An Ethnographic Study of Post-War Mostar'. For her MA in social anthropology (with a minor in political science, history and sociology), she studied at Georgetown University, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Vienna, from which she graduated in 2003.

Her research focuses on the intersections of displacement, migration, memory, transnational placemaking, and digital infrastructure. With extensive fieldwork experience in Southeast and Central Europe as well as Southeast Asia, Dr. Palmberger examines how migrants from Southeast and Southern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia navigate their experiences through digital means and memory practices. Her work particularly emphasizes how digital technologies shape refugees' experiences of mobility, access to resources, and social connections, while also enabling acts of citizenship from below. She has pioneered the digital diary method as part of her innovative approach to digital ethnography.

Dr. Palmberger's recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward examining how digital infrastructure influences refugees' experiences at EU borders, their care networks, and their ability to enact citizenship through placemaking and digital practices. Her work bridges memory studies with contemporary migration challenges, particularly in post-Yugoslav contexts.

Dr. Palmberger has received numerous prestigious awards, including:

• FWF Principal Investigator Projects (2024) for 'Enacting (digital) citizenship from below' and 'Ageing and Subjectivity in a Time of 'Multiple Crises''
• Marie Jahoda Fellowship of the University of Vienna (2022)
• Elise Richter Research Award of the Austrian Science Fund (2018)
• Hertha Firnberg Research Award of the Austrian Science Fund (2014)

As Principal Investigator of multiple major research projects funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the City of Vienna, Dr. Palmberger has secured significant research funding to explore topics ranging from digital citizenship among refugees to aging in times of multiple crises. She has led projects including 'REFUGEeICT – Multi-local Care and the Use of Information and Communication Technologies Among Refugees' (2018-2022) and 'Placing Memories: Ageing Labour Migrants in Vienna' (2015-2018). She has also been active in professional organizations, serving as co-spokesperson for various networks including the Working Group Migration of the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropologists.

Dr. Palmberger co-founded the Digital Ethnography Initiative, which has become an important platform for advancing methodological innovation in digital anthropology. Through this initiative and her editorial work with the Journal Media and Communication, she has fostered interdisciplinary collaboration on the study of digital media and migration. She also serves as editor of the Berghahn EASA Book Series and has been co-spokesperson for the Working Group Migration and Memory of the Memory Studies Association.